


Tryphine

by eyegnats



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Captivity, Comphet Ingrid, Dorothea Voice: That Jerk's Fortune is Soaked in Blood, Erotic Horror, F/F, Forced Marriages, Ghost Sex, Ghost!Dorothea, Gothic, Ingrid Fucks a Ghost, Lesbian Character, Murder, Perceived Descent into Gothic Madness, Rumored Nuptials | Ingrid and Dorothea's Paralogue, Shifting Mental States, based on myth, cabin fever, gothic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyegnats/pseuds/eyegnats
Summary: Ingrid is sent north to spend a moon with a potential marriage candidate. Isolated and increasingly paranoid, she finds her new suitor's bloodied secret may have a mind of her own.A gothic horror piece, inspired by the myth of Bluebeard and set in the vague context of Ingrid and Dorothea's paralogue.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Ingrid Brandl Galatea, Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 11
Kudos: 67





	Tryphine

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Please be advised that Ingrid plays a unintentional, voyeuristic role in the erotic portions of this piece. That is, until she chooses to actively participate. No one gives her the heads up before, though, so I figured I'd warn for it here. 
> 
> Hi. Happy Halloween.

Ingrid arrives at House Wardale in a horsedrawn cage and a cloud of gloom. The manor feels unreal, a mere concept, until the wheels stop their turn. Her driver opens the carriage door, and only then does reality of the situation set itself upon Ingrid’s shoulders. Ingrid moves to exit. She steps herself into the dim light of early, northern dusk.

Her dress has three underskirts and she is forced to squeeze herself through the narrow carriage opening. She releases herself with an action close to a pop, her skirts unfurling out around her once she is free. She stumbles, and catches herself, and rights her posture before a newfound noble’s looming mansion.

It’s an obligatory visit, but one set to last an entire moon. It will be a long one ending in rejection. Ingrid’s father’s press for betrothal lies heavy on her chest, but he would never see fit to smother her. He is a good man, a kind man. A pleading one, whose dreams for her goad with guilt more than force. Yet he always leaves the door open for her to reject the hands offered to her. If she really, truly, certainly, honestly, dislikes them. 

It is inofitself a distinct flavor of strangulation. Bitter, in its self-infliction. She does not wish to disappoint him. She doesn’t, really and truly, and so she humors a few letters of interest here and there when her father’s voice grows a little too desperate and her price is just high enough to justify the strain. Ingrid will relent, then. Ingrid will slip a dress over her shoulders and drape her unbraided hair to her waist when necessary. It’s a simple gambit. It helps her father breathe just a little easier before her intended, inevitable rejection.

Baron Wardale is no true baron. The honest nobility of Faerghus carry bloodlines traceable all the way back to the founding of their beloved nation. Baron Wardale is only a merchant, known to be quiet but sharp, whose enterprising business syndicate has secured him a chunk of land broken off from the northern edge of Mateus. Mateus had needed the money, reportedly, and the King Regent had approved the establishment under no small compensation to the crown, and The Baron... well, his intentions to establish himself in the court required no exploration. Baron Wardale is no baron. Ingrid knows this. Yet there are nobility of higher title and less land in Faerghus. A simple chunk of territory against the Rhodes Coast, too small to be noted on a map, still places him above some of the oldest families in the nation. Despite his heritage, his assets cannot be ignored.

And so, a proposition. A test run. A single moon, to see if she takes to him.

Ingrid admires the dark, coastal manor before her. It overlooks a stormy cliff, the waves of the northern sea crashing against sharp rocks below. Ingrid cannot debate its majesty, nor its signal of hope for Galatea. She closes her eyes, and nods in silent greeting to the manor. When she opens them it is as a simple persona. Still strong, but pleasant. Agreeable and coquettish in the way a courted woman should be. This will be a straightforward matter. Ingrid will thank Baron Wardale for his interest, Ingrid will refrain from upsetting him in any politically disadvantageous way, Ingrid will politely decline, and then Ingrid will leave.

Ingrid has nothing but a reluctant gaze for the grim manor before her. In the third floor’s window, the pale moonface of a woman catches her attention. Otherwise, it is lifeless. The woman stares back at her, unblinking. A curtain shuts. A man’s voice booms out: “Welcome!”

Ingrid startles. She looks down from the eaves of the house to its owner, her suitor. He’s years older than her, but not enough to be improper. He has the shine of new money and Alliance fashions and he says, charming, “Lady Ingrid. I am so pleased you were able to travel this far north.”

Stablehands take the horses of Ingrid’s escort convoy. The men that flanked her journey are invited elsewhere for drinks and supper. Wardale’s servants pay them every intention. Ingrid’s carriage is led away. She finds herself alone, and at the offered arm of Baron Wardale. She takes it.

She has not eaten since breakfast nor slept in a true bed for three days of travel, but Baron Wardale gives her a full tour of the mansion before dinner. He tells her of the manor’s conception—recently renovated, the bones of it an old summer home from the Kingdom’s golden era. The place smells of fresh lumber and opulence. It does not smell of the food her stomach craves. 

Wardale sweeps her through parlors and libraries and one giant, circular, candlelit ballroom in the center of it all. There, he playfully invites her to dance to no music. She allows the ploy, and he curls an arm around her waist. He moves with little rhythm. She pretends to be charmed. On a half-trot of a step his hand dips lower than her waist and she—jumps. Closer to him, unfortunately, her nose pressed to his shoulder and her eyes trained on a far window of the dancefloor. The sky is black with night outside. He laughs, and apologizes, and she laughs too. She laughs with him. She wishes she was home.

Dinner offers some relief. The food is good, and more importantly, plentiful. She has not eaten like this in months. She offers no propriety as she downs the grilled meats and vegetables placed before her. She hopes he is turned off by her manners. His eyes do not leave her as she eats. His eyes linger, long and expectant, when he delivers her to her rooms and stands outside the doorway.

It is not obligatory. It is, at most, curious. There are some suitors who think it is their job to woo Ingrid, and there are those who think the exact opposite. Baron Wardale seems undecided. He stands, and keeps his eyes trained on her, and waits. Just to see if she’ll offer.

Ingrid’s thank you for his hospitality is rushed. Her discomfort is palpable as she moves to close the door. Her crest triggers. It triggers, bright and flashing, and the door slams shut with movements outside of her control.

She slumps herself against it. She waits. Several long, painful minutes later, she hears footsteps retreating beyond the heavy oak. She moves to lock the doorknob, and finds the switch on the outside. Exterior locks are not uncommon in old houses intent on keeping out robbers. Its presence still fills her with dread. She pulls herself up, and straightens her posture. She’s fine.

She finds that her bags have been brought to her quarters. Her pajamas are laid out for her on her fluffed mattress. Exhaustion plagues her, suddenly. She should prepare for bed. She should, but she feels the sinking feeling that something is wrong.

She closes the curtains. She begins to unlace the front of her bodice, then halts. Something is still wrong. She feels eyes prickling at the edge of her instinct. She looks over her shoulder and finds no man present. She peaks around the dresser, and in the adjoining washroom. She keeps a few paranoid darts of her eyes out for small holes or notches that could signal an untoward watcher. She finds nothing.

She releases herself from her dress and tugs it over her head in a single motion. 

She pulls up from the action with a huff. She whips around, again, for any sign of presence. She can still feel it. Observing her. She has felt like prey all night but only now does she feel like an honest deer, wide-eyed and stalked. She glares into the empty bedroom. The candlelight casts shifting shadows, but it is quiet. There is no answer to her accusative gaze.

She settles herself. She is so tired, and she knows it is weighing on her mental state. She should not let her situation rattle her.

“Calm yourself,” she says to her own body. It is the first words she’s truly spoken aloud since she arrived. She had spoken to Baron Wardale. She had nodded her head and spoken thoughts on current goings-on in court but she had felt disconnected to it, for hours. Only now does she give life to her voice and recognize the tone of it.

“You’re fine.”

She slips off the fitted camisole she keeps under her dress. She feels the urge to cover her breasts, but forces herself to keep her arms to her sides. She is safe and fine and no one is casting their lurid gaze upon her. She slips off all three underskirts in one, angry push. She steps from their circumference and briskly puts on her nightgown.

Ingrid did not wear makeup for the journey. She washes her face regardless. She tries not to cry in the safety of the washroom. She scrubs at her cheeks and presses her eyes and breathes deep, threatening lungfuls of upset until her primal urge to cry passes. She’s fine. She sets down her washrag and looks into the basin mirror.

A woman stands behind her. She lingers just behind Ingrid’s shoulder. Dark, full hair falls in waves over her dress. Her face is blank and pale, only marked with a set of painted pink lips.

The woman opens her mouth as if to scream.

Ingrid snaps herself around. Her hips back up against the basin, which rattles, the porcelain pitcher atop it threatening to fall. The bathroom is empty. There is no one behind her. There is no woman, no painted lips, no silent scream. There is no dark hair falling across the full swell of a bodice. There is no one but Ingrid, and the growing realization that she may have pressed herself too far for the day.

She blows out the lights in her quarters and goes to bed.

_ I fear I am ill,  _ she writes to Sylvain the next day. The Baron has business to attend to in town and she is blessed with a late morning and time for herself after an excruciating evening prior. _ I arrived to the newly forged Wardale territory late last night and had a dreadful fit of sleep. I dreamt I was in the heart of Ailell, the valley’s molten lava chasing me as if it was a sentient beast. There is no need for such manifested anxieties, which makes their existence all the more frustrating. Baron Wardale is a fine man. A forward one, and a bit expectant, but not unkindly. _

Her quill drags long and slow over the parchment.  _ I dreamt of a woman, too. The way I imagine you have. The way I imagine all boys do. _ Her grip grows tight. _ I feel there is something wrong with me, Sylvain. I have spoken to you of this illness before but now that my hours grow short and my father’s patience grows slim, it takes me firmer than ever. I refuse to acknowledge it. I cannot afford to indulge in my distaste for those who seek only to care for me, and for Galatea. I feel I am always teetering on the brink of ruining everything. _

She swallows. 

_ I write this to you in a moment of weakness. I know you told me to resolve this situation swiftly. You’re quite good at the end bit of these things. The fatal blow. You always have been. I have that strength inside me. I know I do, and I know where it lies, but it is the gentle hand of society itself that halts my metaphoric blade. I fear I may not be able to go through with my rejection this time. Do not think poor of me for this. If I do not return from Wardale, know that it is out of obligation and not weakness. There are worse fates than the beds of rich, powerful men. _

She sighs.

_ I’m pitying myself, now. I don’t mean to seek your sympathy. I just feel my defenses thinning. If not Wardale, then the next suitor, or the next one after that. It is fated to be one of them. Glenn is no longer with us. Galatea needs me. There is a finite supply of eligible men in Faerghus. One day, there will be a last, and if I reject him unwitting and out of hand, I will have doomed us all. Isn’t that grim? _

_ I fear I may have ruined your day with this one. Pretend I have filled my letter with irate scoldings over your latest mishap, instead. Pretend this page is brimming with the reprimands one would give a hound. Bad boy, Sylvain. I am very disappointed, Sylvain. You are my best and only friend, Sylvain. You naughty, naughty thing. _

_ Keep out of trouble, _

_ Ingrid _

A strange letter for a strange pair of days. Ingrid asks a servant to be directed to her convoy. She finds one of her escorting guardsmen at a dining table. Lunch is scattered before him. A woman, a maid, chatters at his side. The woman’s voice falters when she arrives. Ingrid politely nods her head to her, and hands the guardsman her letter. 

The nearest town is in Mateus proper, a half-day’s ride away. From there the letter could be sent through proper channels to Gautier. The guard looks to her, and back to his meal and company, and frowns, disappointed. Ingrid feels hesitation rise in her throat. She is about to negate the journey, to stress the unimportance of the scattered letter finding its way to its recipient, but the man simply says one final, cooing word to his companion and stands. He states an assurance to Ingrid— _ Lady Galatea _ —that his orders are understood. He stands broad, and proud, and quickly glances back at the maid.

Ingrid realizes he is trying to impress her. Ingrid smiles, and thanks him for his ever-present loyalty as her knight. It’s the role Ingrid has always been meant to play. She allows him to bow before her. She allows him to look dutiful, and well paid.

By the time Baron Wardale returns for dinner Ingrid already regrets sending the message. She is not vulnerable often, and Sylvain has enough on his plate without her romantic angst smathered overtop. She has so often played confidant to him that the reversal feels unnatural. Regretful.

“Are you well?” The Baron asks her over evening tea. Their dinner had been relatively silent and the drawing room they’ve settled in is no livelier. A storm has rolled in from the sea and each harsh drop of rain drums across their desolate little parlor. 

“A bit worn,” she says, “from travelling. Please excuse my aloofness.”

“The maids said you slept in,” Baron Wardale states. “I was hoping to see you before I left, this morning. I’m sorry we missed each other.”

Ingrid’s eyes wane over the room beyond The Baron. Bookshelves of heavy tomes line the walls. Gaps in sets are marked with trinkets, little statuettes and small animal skeletons and strange, liquid-filled jars. A hearth burns bright before them. Above it, a collection of portraits. Family, maybe. Each portrait looks new enough to be from the present generation. A gentleman one that looks much like The Baron, and two sets of elderly couples, and—a woman, tall and pale-faced. She stands painted before a stage curtain in a grand costume with feathers and a plunging neckline. She smiles with pink, painted lips.

“I’d hoped you wouldn’t think of me as an absent husband,” The Baron continues. He may have been continuing for some time, Ingrid isn’t sure. Her attention snaps back to him, to the rain pelting the roof above.

“Would you repeat that, please,” Ingrid says, ineloquent.

“I was apologizing,” The Baron says. “I don’t often abandon those important to me in favor of work. You were asleep when I left, but even so I hope you won’t think me absent from the home.” Ingrid stares blank at him. He stares back, mouthing the words slower, as if she is dumb, “our home, if you were to be my wife.”

“I should not have slept in,” Ingrid replies, so quick it could be mistaken for a bitter snap. “Allow me to offer my apologies as well.”

The man dips his head in acceptance to this. “There, then,” he says. “I would hate to think we got off on an unfirm foot.”

“Nothing of the sort,” she replies.

A servant enters, dressed in a fine suit. The Baron’s servants are dressed finer than Ingrid’s noble-blooded brothers. He presents Ingrid a tray with a short, crystal glass on it. With every expectation prickling at her shoulders, she draws it into her hands.

“Something to relax,” The Baron explains, “it’s from Adrestia. Only the best.”

It smells of alcohol. He takes his own glass and sips it, casual. He looks the very picture of a baron: his working attire covered with a quilted nightjacket, a glass of alcohol in his hands, sitting in a velvet chair before the fire. She supposes this is what he intended, buying his way into the Faerghus court.

Ingrid looks down at her own glass.  _ From Adrestia. Only the best.  _ There are rumors that Lord Wardale was not even Faerghan in origin. Her father could not determine either way in his cursory glance over the proposition. She imagines her father did not look terribly hard into it. 

Ingrid downs the sour, honeyed liquid in one gulp. 

The Baron laughs. At her, maybe, though she does not choke. Ingrid spent her teens in firm belief she would be a soldier. A man—in every sense than the main one. She can drink proper.

Her suitor gestures to her, a smile still wide on his face, and the servant falls at her side, again. He offers a bottle full of the same liquid. Ingrid gazes up at him. Ingrid gazes past him, at the little portrait, one of many, pinned above the fireplace.

The Baron says another wry statement about relaxation. He stands. He sits himself on the couch beside her. He pours her second glass himself. 

She blinks. He’s near her, leaning nearer. His face is unfamiliar. His eyes flit over her, every inch of her. His mouth moves and Ingrid does not listen. She should end this. She should reject him. She should leave tonight. She would if she could, if she could rally her escorting convoy immediately, if she could prove to her father she gave her best effort despite not lasting a full day in a Baron’s grand home.

She downs her second drink and stands abruptly. Both Baron Wardale and the servant tip their heads in surprise. Ingrid nods, firm, to both of them, and excuses herself for the night.  _ It’s getting late. She is so tired. Please, good sir, pardon her abrupt exit. _

Ingrid has a solid sense of direction and marches herself back to her quarters with no further incident. It’s dark, the storm blocking out any trace of moonlight, but she knows her path. She recognizes each little landmark of the house as if she is finding her way back to camp after a day of hunting. She returns to her camp, to her temporary home.

Two halls away from her bedroom, the alcohol hits her. Ingrid has always been a lightweight, but it hits strong. The world shifts and swirls and Ingrid stumbles, from the shock more than the intensity. She carries onwards. She rounds the final corner. 

A woman stands at the end of the hall. 

She is a shadow of a woman. There is no light in the hall but in a flash of lightning Ingrid sees dark, red satin fabric and long, brown hair. Ingrid blindly wanders past suits of armor and landscape portraits, towards her. The woman stands before the entrance to Ingrid’s room. She does not acknowledge Ingrid. Instead, she turns the door handle. The door opens, a sliver of candlelight striking through the hall from inside. The woman enters.

“Hello?” Ingrid questions, stumbling after her, wrenching the door further ajar, “excuse me, this is my—”

The room is empty.

Ingrid deflates herself. She blinks into the bright, lit expanse of her quarters, trimmed in luxury and altogether comfortable despite her circumstances. There is no one present. She squints. Then, she leans a hand against the doorframe.

“Ah,” Ingrid says, to no one. “I’m losing it.”

_ You’ll be pleased to hear I’m losing it,  _ she writes to Sylvain the next morning. She is not sure of the strength of the alcohol she was given but a light headache graces her hairline.  _ I know this will come with some shock to you as, generally speaking, I am not in the process of losing it. But I regret to inform that I am. I made a bitter mess of myself last night. Lord Wardale seemed keen to cozy himself beside me and I am afraid I abandoned him by the fireside with only his servant and a bottle of alcohol to keep him company. I’m sure you find that funny, but here is where I may allow myself to draw your concern: I saw an apparition of a woman in my quarters. _

Ingrid thinks for a second, then expands upon her proclamation.

_ I’m sure you also find that funny. Ideal, even, given your insatiable tastes. But I assure you this was not a real woman. She was some fuzzy, half-drawn approximation in the darkness, but I saw her. I was half-drunk, but I saw her. When I reached her she had physically opened the doors to my chambers and _

Ingrid realizes she sounds insane. Ingrid promptly crumples up the letter. She pens, instead:

_ Sylvain, _

_ Pardon my first letter from Wardale for its dramatics. I do not adapt well to changes in scenery. I am well, my friend. I hope your mind does not rest anxious about me. _

_ I’m sorry we could not see one another this summer. It’s already frigid here, so early into the Horsebow moon. I can imagine Gautier is threatening snow. _

_ Next year, we’ll make time for the beach, _

_ Ingrid _

Much better. Ingrid addresses the envelope and seals the front with wax. She seeks another servant for directions to her convoy.

A maid informs her that they’ve gone to town. “All of them,” Ingrid asks, brow lifting. The maid blushes something fierce and explains there is an overnight establishment catering to men, in town, a certain kind of business, that they might have had a collective interest in. Ingrid thanks her for the information and lets the woman scurry off in embarrassment. 

Another servant directs her to The Baron’s office.

She slips into it unnoticed. Even more odd trinkets line the walls, here. Ingrid takes the time to drag her eyes over them as she awaits her host to acknowledge her presence. He does not, his eyes downcast upon a sheet of costs and numbers. Ingrid clears her throat.

“Lord Wardale,” she prompts. 

The man’s heavy brow lifts to her. He tilts himself back from his work. “Ingrid,” he says, “you’re up early.” A joke. He laughs. Ingrid smiles, tight. 

“You’ll find me quite productive when not exhausted beyond my wits,” she says.

“Surely,” he says, “welcome. Here, sit down. I don’t think I showed you my office the other night.”

He gestures his hands broad around him. The decor is cluttered, but expensive. A half-dozen taxidermied animals gaze upon her from the walls. Ingrid sits herself in a wide leather chair before Baron Wardale’s desk. Ingrid politely sets her envelope atop its surface.

“I was wondering if one of your staff might be able to deliver this to town, for me. It’s not pressing, but if someone was to be headed that way—”

“For your father,” The Baron inquires.

“Ah,” Ingrid says, “no, not him. I haven’t quite written to him, yet. He’s waiting on an opinion and I—” She forces another smile. “I want to ensure I have a wide swathe of assurances of your hospitality to pull from. He’s a prickly man, sometimes. Though you’re making yourself easy to be fawned over.”

The Baron ignores her. He takes Ingrid’s letter from the top of his desk and flips it over. Frowns.

“Gautier,” he notes.

“I will finance the delivery,” Ingrid is quick to say.

“Nonsense, I’ll handle it,” he replies. “You’re close with The Margrave?”

Ingrid says, “his son, actually.”

“His son?”

Ingrid nods. “I know you are new to court, but we’re longstanding friends, Sylvain and I.”

The envelope bends with a light dip in The Baron’s grip. He inquires, “close friends?”

Ingrid can sense when a room’s tone has shifted. The tension heightens. She does not claim to make for a skilled wife, but she has watched her mother soothe the knots of men in these situations. She knows how to handle them.

“Childhood friends, yes,” she says. She states, slow and certain, “just friends.”

At her direct implication The Baron looks embarrassed. He huffs, and tucks the letter in his jacket pocket. “Of course,” he says, step for step in the same dance of words as her own, tipping around the core of the conversation. “I think an errand boy was being sent out by the kitchen today. I’ll have a servant hand this to him. Hopefully they’ll catch the lad before he departs.”

The Baron scoots his large desk chair back and skirts himself out from between it and the heavy, lacquered desk. He excuses himself from the room.

Ingrid is not sure if the conversation is over. She’s not sure if she should leave, if she can leave. She sits, draped in a stripe of morning sun from between the office’s thick curtains. She stays seated. A few minutes pass, and she grows uncomfortable. 

The great desk stirs. 

It’s a thump, first, and a distinctly human cry. Ingrid jumps. She looks around the room, but is met with silence. The office is still. The long-dead stares of hunted animals look upon her but nothing else approximating life remains in the room. 

“Hello?” Ingrid calls, her breath picking up.

The desk is quiet, but its footspace is the closest thing approximating a hiding place in the room. Ingrid lifts herself from her armchair. She takes hesitant footsteps forward, her fingertips gracing the tabletop as she tilts her body far enough to look over the edge of the wood.

A woman’s gaunt face stares back at her.

Ingrid startles, canting backwards. Ingrid flushes. A sticky, lurid situation clicks into place in her mind. She thinks back to her conversation with The Baron. This woman—and himself—together? While he was working? While Ingrid had been talking to him? She flushes. The woman does not remove herself from beneath the tabletop despite her discovery. Ingrid knows she should feel offended on behalf of Galatea. She does, in many ways, a deep crimson climbing up her cheeks. In other ways, she sighs with relief for an easy excuse to depart.

“He’s courting me, you know,” Ingrid says aloud. She masks her flush with a terse tone. She toes her way back around the desk. The woman is still there, but does not denote her presence. The woman sits on her knees in the little cavern of the desk.

The woman reaches her hands out towards the chair. They hover in the air above the seat, each fingertip long and slim and plucking at nothingness with such purpose Ingrid is thoroughly unsettled. The woman, this woman, continues, maneuvering her hands in strange, meaningless waves until she finally pulls them back to her sides. She places her palms against her skirt. She clutches a fistful of fabric, and opens her mouth.

“Excuse me,” Ingrid calls to her. She is ignored. The woman’s painted lips open wider and her head dips down. 

She  _ gags. _

Ingrid watches it happen. The woman’s chest heaves, her mouth open and plump and—glistening, with saliva. She dips her head down again. The chair rattles. Ingrid stands before her, frozen in fear, as Baron Wardale’s chair teeters back without any apparent touch. The woman’s head bobs in a strange, unknown rhythm. Her dark, wavy hair falls in her face. Her eyes press shut and she takes a quick breath through her nose.

The woman’s hands clutch the fabric of her skirt harder. It rustles in her grasp. She gags, again, her chest heaving with the effort. She chokes as if something has crawled down her throat. 

“Are you…” Ingrid starts, the scandal of the situation disintegrating. Worry flutters in her heart as this woman struggles to breathe before her.

The woman’s eyes snap open. She gazes up at Ingrid from beneath long, longing eyelashes. They bat at her. Her makeup is strong, her eyelids low, her eyes a striking, light hazel green. She maintains eye contact with Ingrid. Her pupils are blown wide. She lowers her head and chokes and gags and  _ moans— _

“Lady Galatea.”

Ingrid lets out a gasp. The world shifts, suddenly, a slick slip of unreality sliding beneath her feet. Her balance teeters and she grips the edge of the desk, suddenly, intent on remaining standing despite everything. 

When she looks up it is from behind Baron Wardale’s desk. She stares across the room to the entrance of the study and sees The Baron himself, watching her shiver like the last autumn leaf.

“Sorry,” she says, breathless. “Sorry, I felt—lightheaded.”

“Lightheaded,” The Baron echoes.

Ingrid walks herself from her incriminating position. She bows before Baron Wardale. “Thank you, for arranging the delivery of my letter,” she says. She moves to step past him. “Excuse me. I fear… I may still be suffering from the effects of last night’s drink.”

It’s an attempt at levity but The Baron does not laugh. He glares uncompromised, uncharmed daggers into her. He says, “There is nothing in here for you, Lady Galatea.”

Ingrid looks up at him, faltering under his harsh tone.

“I,” she starts.

“My business is a source of scrutiny in court, I’m sure you’ve heard. But I don’t appreciate a young, entitled Count’s daughter rifling through my possessions. I ask that you respect that.” His voice has darkened. It’s defensive, even as she stands in his shadow.

“I have not touched your possessions,” Ingrid replies, pressing back.

“I have some ledgers still left to moderate,” The Baron states. “There are flowers in the courtyard, the last ones before the winter snap. Please entertain yourself.”

He ushers her out and slams the door.

Ingrid finds herself back in her room soon enough, furiously writing a letter.

_ Sylvain, _

_ I am so terribly unhappy. I feel so trapped. It has been three days and I feel haunted. Three days, Sylvain. I promised my father to spend an entire moon here and I find myself at my wit’s end a mere three days  _

She crumples up her letter. Her room does not possess a hearth to burn unnecessary thoughts, but she places the parchment in a pile beside her other failed attempts for disposal later. She huffs out a breath. On a new piece she writes, in a haphazard scrawl:

_ Sylvain,  _

_ I keep anticipating the worst with him. The unfortunate truth is, he’s a fine man. I keep thinking I will rebuff him here, upset him there, and he will show his true colors. I keep anticipating him to lose his temper and give me the perfect opportunity to make my excuse to exit. I am—fantasizing, Sylvain. I had a lucid, waking dream wherein I discovered a woman under his desk, offering pleasure. So desperate was I to have a reason to escape.  _

She stops writing and slumps against her desk. Her head lies close to the paper. She writes, in tiny, neater letters:

_ I’ve seen her three times, now. This invented woman. Three times in three days. She is always the same. She looks as if she is some fever dream from a young page’s fantasies. She has these large, vacant eyes and even larger breasts, spilling over the drape of her dress like a portrait in the back of a tavern. She looks so crafted. I fear she is some summoned demon from my deeper thoughts, the secret ones, the ones I tell only you of. _

Ingrid bites her lip. She confesses:

_ Sylvain, I fear I am terribly ill. _

She does not send this letter but she does keep it on her desk. She feels better just to have her thoughts transcribed somewhere. It feels good to have them down, compartmentalized, and tucked away between blank sheets and from prying eyes. 

Ingrid asks to take dinner in her room.

The next day, The Baron knocks on her door himself. It’s early in the morning and Ingrid wears only her dressing gown.

“Hello,” she says, surprised. “Good morning, sir.”

“I wanted to apologize,” The Baron states, before she has even finished her greet, “if I seemed defensive, yesterday. I fear that I assumed the worst of you, Lady Galatea, when you have done nothing to deserve such scrutiny.”

It’s an avalanche of words thrust upon her. She attempts to parse them. “Please don’t trouble yourself,” she says, “I’m afraid I was feeling quite unwell. I don’t doubt that I looked suspicious.”

“Even so,” he replies, “would you take breakfast with me, in the garden? I was not lying about the flowers.”

He holds out his hand. Ingrid does not take it. She looks down at herself, instead. “Let me get dressed,” she says, a bit irritated. She moves to shut the door. “Just a few minutes. Thank you.”

Ingrid’s long hair is hastily braided. It swings behind her as she walks through the manicured gardens of House Wardale. She walks arm and arm with her suitor. He has not been overly romantic to her, but her visit here is hardly concerning romance. Her father’s intentions for her stay are far more practical: can you live in this house, eat this food, sleep in this room, sleep in his room. Love is nothing but a bonus in courtships like these. Ingrid is not naive enough to think otherwise. Even so, her suitor takes time to walk her through his rose garden. They all look the same to Ingrid outside of obvious color variation, but Baron Wardale talks in details to her. He speaks of finicky care and lengths of thorns. He compares them to women. She nods politely through all of it.

Beyond the dip and wave of The Baron’s jaw as he speaks, Ingrid’s eye catches on a lone rose. It moves without a hand. It floats, bobbing above a bush. Ingrid watches, transfixed, as the flower is lifted without strings and placed into the hair of a woman. The woman, the same one since her arrival, walks through a flower patch. Her bare feet are careful not to crush any of the dormant stems of blossoms below. She wears a summer dress, and a wide-brimmed hat. The rose is tucked neatly behind her ear.

She looks to Ingrid, and laughs, and disappears.

Ingrid’s stance wobbles. She clutches The Baron’s arm tighter. The Baron laughs at her falter, strengthening his hold to match hers. They clutch one another, alone in the rose garden.

Baron Wardale kisses her. 

Ingrid has kissed men before. She kissed Sylvain, once, in their youth and at her own prompting. There were no sparks between them. There are no sparks now. There is no thrill, besides a small flutter of uncertainty in how she should be reacting. She is not sure how to express that she enjoys it, how she would enjoy it, if she was not so ill. 

She pulls back. She forces a smile. “I lost my footing for a second,” she says, plain.

“I’m glad you did,” The Baron replies.

_ I kissed him, Sylvain. I am not sure you have received my first letter yet, and certainly not my second, but I did kiss him. I do not regret it. It was not so bad. I think I could continue to, if necessary. _

_ I am well. Please do not spare any thought to that first letter. Please do not consider my correspondence anything more than mild entertainment. You know me, I am as stalwart as they come. _

_ Thank you for catching every one of the thoughts I throw into the ether, _

_ Ingrid _

Ingrid seeks out her convoy, again, but this time when she finds her guardsmen surrounded by drinks and feast and pleasant company, she refrains from disturbing them. The Baron does not question an additional letter to Gautier the day after her first week in House Wardale. She places a letter for her father in his hands, as well. Her words within it are as positive as she can manage without expressing agreement to the betrothal. Like all her communications with her father, it dances a fine line between soothed concerns and rebellion. Baron Wardale tucks both envelopes in his jacket pocket and says he’s headed into town for the evening. He can deliver them himself.

She takes an afterdinner drink with him in the library, the next night. Their interaction is not any different than their usual, mostly pleasant conversation, until he says: “do you like to read?”

She thinks it might be the first time he’s asked about her interests. He was talking about a rare volume of herbal medicine in his possession, before, and she assumes he is hoping to segue into another proclamation of ownership with whatever her next answer may be. Still, she seizes the opportunity to offer words of more substance than platitudes.

She says, “oh, yes,” and “chivalrous tales mostly, though I’ll read anything with a character approximating a knight.” She shrugs. “I wanted to be a knight, when I was young.”

He gives her a slight snort. “Fairy tales,” he says.

“Yes,” she replies, not entirely appreciating his tone.

“You’re a bit old for those, hm? Are you the nostalgic type?”

Ingrid isn’t sure how to respond. “...They’re quite popular in Faerghus, actually,” she says. She states, “across all ages. Cultural, even.”

There’s a slight undercurrent to her words. She does not mean to accuse him of foreign origin, but it’s there—sharp, and accusative. Her suitor is wrapped in mystery and she should not prod its sweeping shadow. She should not provoke what could be Galatea’s final, fatal chance. She does anyway.

The library falls silent. Soon after, Ingrid excuses herself to bed.

Ingrid does not see the woman, the rose woman, again until midway through her second week. The Horsebow Moon is half over and the skies threaten snow. Ingrid is wracked with sleeplessness well into the night. As she has been, since the beginning of the moon.

Her days have been pleasant, but long. They seem to drag out in an endless stream of polite conversation and reclusive hiding. Ingrid twists herself in her sheets for a fresh angle upon her mattress. Even when she coaxes herself to dream, true rest evades her. She cracks open her eyes in surrender.

In the darkness, a figure stands at the foot of her bed.

It’s a thin figure, wide in the hips and bust but altogether lean. It stands before her in a dressing gown. The fabric is red, and smooth, and lashed in the middle with a large bow. The woman lifts her hands to the bow and pulls it from its knot. The belt falls to the floor. The overlapped hems of fabric open, like the parting of a stage play’s curtains. They reveal the naked figure of a woman beneath. What little moonlight that struggles through the clouds enters Ingrid’s window. It spotlights the woman’s bare form.

Ingrid does not move. She attempts to keep her sanity about her, muttering assurances of reality and waking nightmares known to occur in the realms of science and her acceptable level of appreciation for the female figure. She keeps murmuring to herself, talking herself down, talking herself away from the woman so physical in front of her. Her mind and words slur. She says, “please leave me alone,” in a desperate, low whisper. She tells the woman, “please.”

She does not remember falling asleep. In the morning she requests tea, alone, in the same parlor she met with The Baron for expensive alcohol. The house has taken a chill since passing the peak of Horsebow. Though the servants start a fire in the room’s grate it does little but take the edge off Ingrid’s state. A strange fugue has taken her, exacerbated by a lack of rest. Baron Wardale is off in town, again. His spot of land is little more than an estate and his industry and wealth lies elsewhere, scattered in shadow and not entirely contained to Faerghus. Ingrid is left to her lonesome to sip tea and glare at the portrait on the wall. She has already written to Sylvain this morning. This portrait is all that occupies her thoughts.

The small, golden plaque nailed into the wooden frame offers her a name and indecipherable date:  _ Miss Dorothea Arnault, My Rose, On Her Birthday. _ The gift of a portrait painter was not an uncommon one in Faerghus. Ingrid squints at the brushstrokes. It’s muddled through an artisan’s lens but the woman in the painting is familiar. Ingrid sees the form of her projections in its visage. A woman, Dorothea, against a curtained background. Her painted dress is even more elaborate up close. It is a performance costume, clearly. It is crusted with the sparkles of an actress, so she might glint and gleam to even the furthest balcony. A stole of feathers is wrapped around her shoulders and arms. Her dress is in the Adrestian style. She smiles, proud, for the artist. For her immortalized monument.

_ My Rose.  _ Ingrid narrows her eyes at the romantic lilt of the words. She takes another long sip of tea, hoping it wakes her from her haze. It does not. She returns to her rooms, and sleeps the rest of the day.

_ Father,  _ Ingrid writes. 

_ This is not an excuse for a rejection, I assure you. In fact this is not a rejection for Baron Wardale at all. I know I promised you a full moon within his house but I am afraid I have fallen ill, and would like to make such life-altering decisions from the comfort and recovery of my own bed. _

Ingrid finishes her letter with poise and grace and a hint of pleading for his belief that she is not simply being difficult. She is not a difficult person. She makes every effort to follow the norms required of her, and it frustrates her to no end when she is painted as odd and countercurrent despite her constant efforts. It is, undeniably, an effort.

_ Sylvain,  _ Ingrid writes.

_ I want to go home. _

She finds her convoy. They still linger in the servant’s quarters, aimless yet enjoying the vacation. There is no struggle in Wardale the way there is in Galatea. The noble guard in Wardale is strong, and Ingrid’s guardsmen seem happy with the lack of work. She hears whispers that one of them men has fallen for a maid and is reluctant to return. Ingrid is not against leaving him behind in her rush to depart.

“I expect we will return to Galatea soon,” she informs them. “A bit early, clearly. If you would begin preparations to depart I would like to be gone by the end of the week.”

She seems to be unable to ask anything of them that doesn’t make their brow wilt in disappointment. She presents them her letters, and one of the group agrees to deliver them to town.

Two days later, it snows. 

Ingrid watches it from the grand ballroom. A half-circle of windows gazes out over the frozen, deadened rose garden. Ingrid enjoys the view of the weather. She likes the snow, and always has. She watches it fall gentle and fluffy over the bushes and flower beds. She watches a woman stand in the room sheltered from it.

Dorothea, the woman—Ingrid hates to give her a name, to give her more power than she already has—stands in the center of the dancefloor. Ingrid has grown accustomed to her figure. Ingrid has grown used to the wave of her hair, the plunge of her neckline. 

Ingrid witnesses her raise her hands up and open her mouth. Not in lust, or in scream, as Ingrid has seen before. The apparition is silent. Ingrid simply lingers, a wallflower to an empty party, and gazes out at the songstress performing in the center of it all. Ingrid can hear no noise of substance. There is the echo of a faint, high voice in the far reaches of her mind, but there is no tune.

The world shudders around Dorothea. The ballroom is gilded with gold and it drips, around her. The sky shifts, behind her. There is no stable footing in the dreamworld Ingrid finds herself running in and out of, and so she sits. She sits against the far wall of the ballroom and pulls her legs in on herself and tears up, just a little. She has no fear of this apparition any longer. Yet she feels something in the unheard notes. Her face curls ugly and defensive and her eyes leak faster than the side of her hand can press away. 

Curled up at the edge of the ballroom is where Baron Wardale finds her hours later. Asleep, maybe. When he rests a hand on her shoulder she feels as if she has come out of a haze.

“I’m sorry to hear of this,” he says to her.

She blinks, steadying herself. “Hm?”

“I’ve been informed you want to leave,” he presses, and she is in no state of mind for this conversation.

“Yes,” she says, regardless, “I’m afraid I’ve been taken with some unseen illness, here. My apologies. I meant to be the one to inform you.”

She wishes she was home already.

“...I won’t stop you,” The Baron says, “but I must say, Lady Galatea, that I had hoped for more.”

Ingrid packs her own bags.  _ Sylvain,  _ she pens.  _ I’m going home. Write to me there. _ She will present this envelope for delivery in town, herself. She wishes he would have just once written her back in her time here. He is a lazy communicator. She knows this of him, and it has only been three weeks, but it would have been nice. 

Dorothea watches her undress that night. Dorothea watches her crawl into bed. She senses it, and when she blows out the candle, she sees the shadowed form of a woman’s body. Robed, then naked. Dorothea’s actions at the foot of her bed are always the same. It is an echo of some unknown reality. The bow she tugs free always falls with the same, effortless grace. The edges of her dressing gown are always cast open with the same, abrupt rhythm. A memory. A projection. Ingrid isn’t sure where her fantasies begin and the haunted, sickened grounds she finds herself upon end. 

“Don’t follow me when I go,” she demands of the indecent woman. Then, politely, “please.”

In the morning, her convoy explains to her that the night’s snowfall has made the road to Mateus impassable for a carriage. Ingrid offers to go on horseback. She can ride, they can all leave the carriage behind, but they look at her as if she has gone mad. She quiets herself and returns to her quarters.

She spends her evening, and the next three, with The Baron. The tension grows between them as she waits for clear skies. It is difficult to cut and then not be able to run.

“If I’ve upset you,” he prompts on the last night before every hell was set to break loose, “please tell me. We can discuss it.”

_ He’s fine,  _ Ingrid writes to Sylvain. She’s not sure she’s writing for Sylvain anymore. There are thoughts she simply refuses to allow to exist in her head.  _ He’s a fine man, Sylvain. There’s nothing wrong with him. Yet I can’t shake the terrible feeling of this place. He asks me what he’s done wrong, what he can do better, and I have nothing to say. What can I say? You were a bit too forward when we met, sir. I thought you sought to seduce me when you offered me alcohol, sir. You seemed just a tad over-angered when it looked as if I had rifled through your desk, sir. I didn’t like how threatened you were when I wrote to Sylvain, sir, as if you did not have every right to question why your potential bride communed with another eligible man. _

She sucks in a tight breath. Her chest aches.

_ Everything I have against him are these little prickles of discomfort. Most of them are imagined. My father will not fight me, if I truly wished to turn him down, but he will listen to my protests and see them as just that: protests. Silly, childish, petulant, meaningless, _

Someone is watching her. Ingrid stops writing. She does not glance behind her. When she washes her face, she does not look in the mirror. She prepares for bed and snuffs the lights. She readies herself for the inevitable.

Dorothea visits her every night, now. Every evening, an echo of the same illicit show. Dorothea draws back her robe and Ingrid stares, flat, upon her. Ingrid looks over the full breasts that have become common. Ingrid tries not to take interest.

Dorothea moves further tonight than she had before. This is new, now. Dorothea seeks to do more than stand bare on this final night before Ingrid’s departure the next day. There are no clouds in the sky, the snow is not yet set with the Wyvern moon’s chill, and Ingrid’s escape is all but guaranteed. Ingrid draws herself up in bed when Dorothea drops the little fabric she wears down her shoulders. Ingrid watches Dorothea,  _ Dorothea, _ she despises that she has given this vision a name. Dorothea lifts a knee to the mattress. And then the other. Dorothea crawls forward. Her chest hangs low, her hair shifting in rifts over her shoulders and down, so long the tips graze the mattress. She crawls nearer. Ingrid can feel the phantom press of knees on either side of her legs. Dorothea is naked, and bold, and—gasping, as she sits herself upwards and sinks down onto something that is firmly not there.

Ingrid looks up at a woman in ecstasy. Dorothea bounces, on Ingrid’s lap, the folds between her legs parted for seemingly nothing. It’s the most horrifically perverse thing Ingrid has ever bore witness to. Ingrid closes her eyes. Ingrid stays beneath the ghost and clutches her eyes shut and clenches her teeth but she can still hear it. She can hear every little gasp and dramatic moan and she can feel the light press of something firmly not there sinking herself up and down on something also not present, not there, not real. 

Ingrid feels sick. Ingrid feels a sick, hot press in her stomach. Ingrid shifts her legs and flinches and listens. Ingrid stays, stone still, and refuses to open her eyes. Hands rest on her chest. Hands cup her jaw. Hands settle on her thighs, as leverage to lift and spear on pure vacancy. 

Ingrid dares a glance. Her breath is ragged with confusion, barely under her control, and when she looks up it is to see the bounce of Dorothea’s chest and the parting of her lips and the pleased shut of her eyes and the fullness of her hips and the little, growing thumb-bruised marks planted at her waist. Dorothea comes. She shudders, bright and alive and shivering with pleasure.

Ingrid instantly recognizes it as fake.

_ Sylvain, _ she writes to no one at the first light of dawn. She has not slept.  _ I am definitely insane. _

In the morning, Ingrid’s convoy tells her the snow is still too heavy to travel. “We’re going anyway,” she tells them back. They do not move. “We’re going,” she demands, louder. “We’re  _ leaving!” _ she yells, as maids seek to calm her and men, the men whose only duty is to escort her safely, stare blank-faced and unmoved at her tantrum. Hands are at her shoulders. Hands push and pull and hold her down and she kicks, like a pony. Like a foal, with barely any strength at all. She ends up in The Baron’s office.

She waits patiently. She sits in the armchair facing his desk and listens to him finish up a meeting with a wary-eyed merchant. She listens to talks of trade, of talks of things she does not know, Agarthium and bloodstones and other fine goods Galatea has no need to expense for, and thereby the names of which Ingrid does not recognize. They speak as if she is not there. The merchant takes his leave.

“Spend the winter with me,” The Baron suggests, as soon as they are alone.

“Absolutely not,” Ingrid replies.

They sit in a sickly quiet.

“Your father agreed with the idea,” The Baron says.

“I don’t,” Ingrid replies. 

“I think it would do well for your health if you—”

“Who’s Dorothea?” Ingrid asks.

The Baron is silent. It stretches onwards. It stretches so far it falls out of polite rhythm. He sighs at her, finally. He says, “an opera star, from Adrestia. I played suitor to her for some time, before you, though it ended sour. Have the servants chattered to you of this?”

“You have her portrait in your parlor,” Ingrid says. 

“She’s quite famous,” The Baron replies, not skipping a further beat. “A bit past her prime now, maybe, but she once stood as tall as a commoner can in Adrestia. Her portrait is just a souvenir to me. An oddity, like the rest.” He waves a hand to the decor of the room. “I don’t harbor any feelings for her, if you find yourself concerned.”

“Is she dead?”

The Baron draws still. “No, I don’t think so,” he says.

“You’re sure?” Ingrid questions. 

“Opera stars have a habit of reaching fast heights, and faster falls,” The Baron states. “I could not tell you where she is for certain.”

_ Sylvain, _ Ingrid writes, later.  _ My convoy claims the weather is still too volatile but I must return home soon. I must. I have begun to form a conspiracy that a fallen opera star haunts this estate. _

Ingrid thrums with anger. It thrummed in her all along, maybe, since her arrival, but only now does she allow herself to stalk around her room like a penned animal. She paces. Her house slippers don’t provide the firm stomp she seeks and so she huffs, loud, and slams her hands onto her desk. 

She feels the usual presence watching her. She does not mind it in her sputtered fire of a state. Ingrid undresses herself for bed with none of her usual precautions. She does not cover her chest. She does not change into her nightdress with any hint of embarrassment.

She blows out the candle, and sees Dorothea. Ingrid ignores her. Ingrid lies in bed, angry, and waits for the usual show. Dorothea disrobes on cue. Ingrid drags up the hem of her nightdress and sticks her hand between her legs. 

She does not bother with Dorothea’s seductive, yearning expression. She’s not sure it’s real. She’s sure none of this is real. She has been teetering over the edge of reality since her arrival in this terrible, northern mansion and she has no need for propriety in a room that may as well be a dungeon cell. Her fingertips find the warmth between her legs and she stares at Dorothea’s breasts. She grunts, frustrated, at the cold of her own hands. She rubs without care or passion.

It feels good.

Dorothea is the same echo as always. Her movements play out in the same way they always do. The reveal, the smile, the slip of robe to the floor. When Dorothea climbs atop the mattress Ingrid does not shut her eyes. Ingrid allows her to climb atop her, to straddle her. Ingrid touches herself faster, firmer.

It has been some time. Ingrid is not adverse to the concept, but she has never been too eager to indulge in her dangerous wander of thoughts. She has no reservations now. Ingrid stares at the body before her and feels filthy. Ingrid stares and rubs and makes use of the show that has haunted her for nearly a moon.

She finishes herself before the apparition pretends to. Thoughts fill the gaps in the back of Ingrid’s post-orgasmic mind and she watches Dorothea in a light not clouded with fear, or repression, or lust. There is a clarity to her thoughts she has not felt in weeks, maybe years. Dorothea is pretty. There is a smudge to her lipstick and a twinkle to her eyes. There’s a tiny, pale scar on her hip that catches the moonlight. Ingrid admires her, even as the woman shudders through the end of her performance.

Dorothea is an opera star. The occupation suits her. Ingrid allows the woman to capture her attention. She allows Dorothea her mock-finish, her final bow, and then her unprompted vanish.

Ingrid’s bedroom door swings open.

Ingrid does startle, now. She jumps in bed. She tugs her hand from where it rests, warm and content at the interior of her thighs. She sits up.

Dorothea is no longer atop her. Dorothea enters the room, smiling and pleased. Dorothea is dressed and looks as she did when Ingrid was drunk, wearing shimmery, slick, wine-colored satin. This Dorothea fades as soon as she enters.

The door shuts of its own volition. Then opens. Dorothea re-enters. She fades. The door shuts. Then opens. Dorothea re-enters. Ingrid gets out of bed. The cycle continues, over and over, until Ingrid catches the door on its close and all goes still.

Ingrid grabs her dressing gown and throws it over her body. She slips on her house slippers. She exits the room at the apparition’s clear proposition. She hears singing. 

It is still not a full tune but she hears notes. Ingrid does not think, she only follows. There is an empty, hollow cavern in Ingrid’s chest and the discordant song that graces her ears threatens to fill it. She stumbles after it like a siren’s call. She admits to her insanity, embraces it fully. She follows.

It is strange to see the ballroom unlit by sun or candles. Dorothea stands in the center, singing. Dorothea’s voice bellows loud and clear and her arms are raised to the ceiling. Ingrid feels the subtle vibrations of an audience’s applause despite not hearing it. She walks forward to touch Dorothea, maybe, she’s not sure. She’s not sure what she wants. When she reaches the ghost of a songstress, the woman vanishes as quickly as she had in Ingrid’s room.

Ingrid falters. She is alone, in the center of the ballroom. She is alone for only a few moments. Her eye catches on a summer dress and hat. Dorothea stands beyond the windows, in the garden, flowers in her hair. The harsh, pale light of the moon makes her appear ghostly. She stands dressed for the sun. Her bare feet are lost beneath a blanket of snow.

There is no direct path to the garden from her position. Ingrid can barely keep her balance as she makes her way through the house to an exit. She races. She cares not for the noise she makes, the residents she wakes. She stumbles through the halls. She stops at the parlor, the one holding the portrait of Dorothea, only because The Baron himself stands within it. He stands before a fire. He has letters in his hands, a clutch of them. He looks startled, as if he has been caught. She feels caught. She feels like a child, out of her covers past bedtime. It comes with an innate thrill.

The Baron starts to say, “Ingrid—” but she darts away. She has no time for his reprimands. She flees through the front door and into the night.

The rose garden is quiet. It is covered with snow. The footpath is indecipherable through the coverage. When Ingrid races through the slush she steps sometimes on cobblestones, and sometimes on the undercoating of dead, dormant grass. She catches flashes of Dorothea. Running, laughing, winding through the maze of bushes and flowerbeds. Ingrid cannot match her joy but she still carries forward in her determination. She gets the feeling she is being led somewhere.

Ingrid throws her body out the exit gate of the manicured yard. She finds herself on the main road to the house. There is a cliff, in the distance. A path to freedom, in the other direction. Ingrid’s slippers grow soaked with snow. She is numb from the cold already, but the nearest town is only a half-day’s ride. In the flurry of her mind she justifies that if she starts walking now she can have lunch in Mateus by the peak of the sun.

Dorothea stands before her. Dorothea stands with a ripped sleeve and sallow face, stepping backwards from her. Dorothea looks terrified. Dorothea screams, her painted lips silent and round and while Ingrid cannot hear her voice through the wind the horror in her expression does not signal a song. Dorothea seizes as if she has been struck. She falls.

“Dorothea!” Ingrid yells into the strong gusts that rush from the ocean. Her braid whips at her back. She runs to Dorothea’s limp body as if she is a dear friend, as if she can check for a pulse.

Blood leaks from Dorothea’s scalp. She is pulled away from Ingrid’s attempts to touch her. Ingrid watches in silent shock as Dorothea’s body is dragged with the carelessness of a doll across the snow. She is hefted, limp, into invisible arms. Ingrid watches Dorothea’s figure dip and float across the road. Ingrid keeps up with her. Ingrid attempts to tug at her, attempts to pull her into her own grasp. Ingrid’s fingers slip right through Dorothea when she tries too hard to grasp at a physical form that is simply not there.

They approach the sheer cliffs of the Rhodes Coast. Dorothea stirs, her eyes dazed as they roll forward and awake. She struggles. She is lifted too far for Ingrid to reach.

_ “Dorothea!” _ Ingrid screams out.

The whites of Dorothea’s eyes widen just before she is dropped over the edge of the cliff.

She falls swift. Her hair and skirts have just a few, brief moments to flutter upwards before she disappears from Ingrid’s sight. Ingrid does not allow herself to dwell on the idea that she has just witnessed a woman die. Ingrid checks her shaking balance and leans as far as she can to peek over the cragged cliff.

It is a brutal, fatal drop. There is no body below. Only dark, frothing waves and the thud of Ingrid’s own heartbeat. 

Ingrid falls back. Her body is cushioned by the snow. She drags herself away from the edge. Whoever Dorothea is she is truly no longer living, no longer breathing, her body lost or washed up on some foreign shore. Whoever Dorothea is she never knew Ingrid. Not while she was alive, at least. Ingrid’s fingers dig into fistfulls of rocky dirt and snow and pull herself as far as she can from the cliffside.

Dorothea graces her vision again. Ingrid sees her, clear, her murky sense of disbelief long lost. Dorothea is bloody. Dorothea floats. Dorothea is thrown over the edge.

Ingrid sits for what feels like hours despite the moon failing to sink. Dorothea is struck. Dorothea is lifted. Dorothea falls over the horizon. Thump, blood, lift, carry. Throw, over the edge of infinity. Splash. Thump, blood, lift, carry, throw, splash, again. Again. Ingrid sees Dorothea die. Again. Ingrid screams out for her. Ingrid screams at the invisible assailant. Ingrid fights intangible forces for a body long gone. Throw. Splash. Ingrid lets out a wail of desperation. She no longer cares that she has lost her mind. She seeks only to stop the murder spaced out endlessly before her.

“She’s here,” a man’s voice calls. Hands are gripped around Ingrid’s waist and she’s lifted, like a doll herself. She is thrown over a broad shoulder. Ingrid screams and kicks and cries. She drags her nails down what skin she can reach and a man hisses out a curse. Ingrid recognizes his voice. She recognizes him as one of her convoy, her escorts, from Galatea.

“Put me down!” she yells, squirming against his firm grip. She punches down against his back, and again, and again, as repetitive as her evening has been, and—there, her crest triggers, finally, the man crying out in pain and dropping her into the snow. 

It’s so cold. She falls shoulder-first upon the ground and stays there. She lets out a shiver of a breath and stares up at a clear night sky. A full, Horsebow moon. The final one, before The Wyvern takes to the sky. “Dorothea,” she calls.

“She’s really lost it,” another man says. A chuckle answers him. The man that had heaved Ingrid over his shoulder groans, and lifts himself back to a stand.

A figure, stern and disapproving, leans over Ingrid and into the tiny viewport of her vision. “Lady Galatea,” he says, “you’re very ill. We’ll escort you inside, but please see to it that you do not fight our assistance.”

Ingrid does not. Ingrid is wrapped in a blanket and placed before the parlor fire. She is given a mug of something warm alongside fresh, dry socks and slippers. Men murmur around her. A maid asks if there’s anything she can bring her. “Am I insane?” Ingrid replies. 

The maid opens her mouth, but has no answer.

Ingrid tunes out the hushed, concerned chatter that continues to revolve around her. She gazes up, at Dorothea’s portrait. She wonders how much she is projecting. She debates what is real, and what is some internalized apparition she has slipped into the bodice of an opera star she does not know, and will never know. She thinks of Dorothea’s death and whether it truly happened. If it did, she thinks she knows who is responsible.

_ Sylvain,  _ she thinks.  _ I have seen a woman die. I do not know how long ago. I do not know if I have imagined it. I do not know if my desire to leave this place has pinned a murder on Baron Wardale through sheer fantasy. _

Her gaze drifts down from the portrait to the fireplace.

_ I saw a woman die tonight, Sylvain. I really think I did. I wish you were here. I wish I was home. I feel so terribly unwell. _

A small stack of parchment rests before the fire. Ingrid would mistake them for nothing more than scrap kindling if the broken seal of the top letter did not resemble a slashed wheel of scythes. Ingrid squints down at it. Men converse around her, of her state, of what to tell her father. Ingrid slides forward in her chair. Ingrid slides off of it, dropping to her knees. She crawls forward, unnoted in the commotion. She moves herself to the foot of the fire. She lifts the stack of papers: they, too, forgotten in the chaos of the evening.

The top envelope carries the crest of Gautier on its wax seal; broken, read, discarded. Ingrid pulls the letter clutched inside of it outward.

_ Ingrid, _

_ You’re not ill. _

_ You do not have to go through with this. I’ll come to Mateus territory myself if I have to—Wardale territory, whatever, he’s not a real noble. _

_ I’ll marry you if necessary. Whatever it takes, however you need me. You’re not at the end of your rope yet. _

_ Your loyal hound, _

_ Sylvain _

She could cry. She looks at the date in the top corner and finds it printed barely a week after her arrival. Marked, delivered, intended, just for her. She looks down and sees the next letter carries the same broken seal.

_ Ingrid, _

_ Are you well? Are you mad at me? I know you dislike when I talk about marriage, but this is a colder shoulder than usual. Your father says you’re fine but he’s too polite to be an honest man. I am worried about you, trapped out there in some strange noble’s purchased mansion. There’s ghost stories about these things, you know. _

_ Talk to me, _

_ Sylvain _

Sylvain, Sylvain, from Sylvain. She shifts through the pile. A few are not from Sylvain. A few more are. She reads the next, and the next, each growing shorter and more curt, each begging her to respond, and then something—off, about the last one. It is written on heavier paper, gilded around the edges in leaf gold. The crest of Gautier is both embedded in its seal and embossed upon the parchment. It reads:

_ You’re not Ingrid. _

_ Lord Sylvain José Gautier, Heir to the Margravate of Gautier _

Ingrid’s head swims for a second. She is not primed to digest the simple message. She feels disconnected from her body; primed to accept the suggestion of a strange letter as fact. Is she not Ingrid? She’s not sure. She’s never been so unsure.

Only when the parchment has been swiped from her hands does she realize that the letter, this final letter, is not intended for her. It was never intended for her. It is a reply to some other correspondence outside her own. A response, to the only man who could have contacted Sylvain on her behalf.

She looks up. Baron Wardale rips the rest of the letters from her hands and throws them into the fire. She kneels at the mouth of the flames and watches them burn to a crisp. They disintegrate in seconds.

“You never sent my letters,” Ingrid says.

“You’ve caused enough trouble for tonight,” The Baron replies.

“Only the first one, that first day, because,” Ingrid says, starts, swallows, “you didn’t know about it.” 

“We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

Ingrid feels colder beside the fire than she felt in the snow, in the road. She sees the ashes of other letters. She gazes upon the corners of parchment that have drifted too far away from the main blaze to burn. She sees that the wood drips with the melt of wax seals. She wonders who else has sent her mail. And, if not to her, what other correspondence The Baron has need to destroy.

“Escort your lady to her quarters, please, gentlemen,” The Baron says. “She needs to rest.”

The few present members of Ingrid’s guardsmen approach her. Ingrid says, “don’t touch me.”

They do not stop. Ingrid sees this, sees how loyalties have shifted, and rights herself to run. She carries herself a few, freeing steps before a hand snatches her hair.

Ingrid is dragged back by her scalp. The Baron has her by her unkempt braid. She yells when the tension of the pull blossoms to a heat of pain. She cries out, but feels The Baron’s hand only wind itself tighter in the rope of it.

_ “Release me,”  _ she screams. Her own guardsmen approach and she yells, again, “Don’t touch me!”

They touch her. They lift her. They drag her. They are not loyal to her, and she wonders if they ever were, truly. She wonders if they’re being paid or have simply been offered a better life than what Galatea can provide. She wonders, if asked, if they would toss her over a cliff.

Ingrid is delivered to her room by force.

Ingrid is promptly locked inside. 

_ Oh, Sylvain. I have made a mess of myself that I fear I may not crawl out from. _

Her room is dark. Dorothea is there. Dorothea has already disrobed, but the glimmer of memory does not proceed. The ghost simply stands, naked, before Ingrid. She has stilled herself in a moment that is not lustful, or luring. It is a flicker of a frown. If Dorothea was to play this memory, forward or back, the frown would slip back to her composed, seductive expression. She only has this one moment to freeze upon, to express herself. She looks disheartened.

Ingrid drapes her arms around Dorothea. She doesn’t know what else to do. The apparition is not solid, but Ingrid imagines she is hugging a real, tangible woman. It’s antithetical, but Dorothea feels sturdier when Ingrid pretends that she is.

“Can you hear me?” Ingrid asks.

The figure does not stir.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” Ingrid says, “but you tried to warn me, didn’t you? You’ve been trying to warn me.”

Dorothea does not answer. She does not move from the still moment she has chosen. She bares her frown only to Ingrid. 

“You must think me difficult,” Ingrid says. “I apologize for not listening to you, or following you, before tonight. I can be obtuse.” She laughs, voice distant, a little nervous giggle amidst an ocean of helplessness. “I’m surprisingly stubborn, really. It’s a miracle you captured my attention.”

Dorothea moves. The memory of her plays forward. She climbs onto the mattress, and stops herself when she’s straddling her invisible figure. She vanishes. She appears before Ingrid, again. She crawls onto the bed, again.

“You want me to rest,” Ingrid infers. Dorothea returns to her side. “I can sleep, but I won’t promise rest.”

Dorothea disappears. The door rattles. Ingrid looks behind herself, to the entrance of her room. The locked handle quivers but does not open. Dorothea still appears, walking through it, making every motion in mime of opening a door. She does it over, and over, each little mimic of her entering her quarters twisting in Ingrid’s chest. The door handle does not stop its shaking.

“I’ll find a way out,” Ingrid tells her, assures her. “I promise.” 

_ Sylvain, have you ever felt connected to a woman? I know you’ve taken many to bed, but in a way deeper than sex? _

Ingrid eats a silent breakfast beside The Baron. The house bustles around her as if nothing has changed. As if her own guards don’t flank her sides in escort and capture. No amount of bacon can swerve the sick feeling in Ingrid’s stomach. She thinks she might actually, for once, be ill.

“I sent your father marriage terms last week,” The Baron says.

Ingrid shoves a sweetroll into her mouth.

He continues: “Your father has agreed to them.”

“Did you burn my letters to him as well, then?” Ingrid asks, mouth full. 

“Yes,” The Baron replies. “He believes you consent.”

She’s not sure if The Baron’s honesty is refreshing. It is, at the very least, honesty. 

“I don’t,” Ingrid states. “Just so we’re clear.”

“There are worse fates, I’m sure you’re aware. For you, and for Galatea.”

Ingrid shoves the rest of her roll in her mouth. She makes him wait as she chews, and swallows, and dabs her lips with a cloth napkin. “You’d throw Galatea off a cliff as well, then?”

The Baron pales. They exchange a glance. She sees him think through it, what she knows, how she knows, how much she knows, who has told her what and how it may impact him.

She’s escorted back to her rooms before her plate is finished. The door is locked yet again. Ingrid does not attempt to bang against it. She slumps herself on her bed, and stares at the ceiling.

Dorothea pretends to open the door, as if in greeting. The locked handle groans in protest.

“Hello again,” Ingrid says. “I do hope you are real, Dorothea, and I have not simply lost my mind.”

Dorothea appears at her bedside. Dorothea climbs upon it. Dorothea stills herself, as naked as always, above Ingrid. 

Ingrid reaches tentative hands upwards, to rest upon her cheeks. She cups the woman’s face. “You’re prettier than me,” she says.

Dorothea leaves her. She appears at the foot of the mattress with her stark frown. 

“I don’t mean to compare,” Ingrid says, sitting up on her elbows. “I just think you’re—I think you’re beautiful.” Her lips pull back into a grimace. “I’m sorry if you were trying to get my attention and I put my hand between my legs. I’m not improper. I was just… confused. I didn’t understand your intentions.”

Dorothea appears above her, upright and straddling her. Dorothea plays her memory forward, bouncing only once upon Ingrid’s lap.

“Yes, well, you’re quite alluring,” Ingrid says. She’s sure if The Baron is listening she sounds suitably unsound. “And I… I’ve had a taste for women. Since I was a child.” Ingrid shrugs herself down. “I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

Dorothea bounces in her lap again. Ingrid does not react. “Thank you for understanding,” she says, as if this is a yes.

Dorothea rewinds herself back to where she is leaning down, close to Ingrid. Ingrid nods to her. “I would have liked to have known you,” she says. “I think it’s too late for that, though. It might even be too late for me.”

Dorothea vanishes. She appears by the door. She pretends to open it.

“I know, I should go.”

Dorothea pretends to open the door.

“I know,” Ingrid says, “I know, I’ll go.”

_ I don’t think madness is as bad as people say, Sylvain. _

Ingrid brought a riding outfit. It’s not that she expected to ride at the Wardale manor, but the potential was enough to soothe her worst edges when packing. She dons pants and boots and a high-collared jacket. Ingrid does not recognize her reflection but it does not disgust her, and she considers that a boon. She steadies herself for the escape ahead. 

Ingrid’s hair lies in tatters on the floor. It’s chopped short, just a little past her jaw. It has not been cut with the elegance of a practiced hand but rather two shaking ones, slicing in anger and uncaring for result. She looks to the mirror, and makes eye contact with Dorothea through it. She has not seen Dorothea in the basin mirror since her very first night in the mansion. Dorothea had startled Ingrid, then, and Ingrid had failed to get a good look at this slice of residual past.

Dorothea gazes sadly at her from the silvery depths. Her mascara is smeared, some dripping down to the tips of her high cheekbones. Her nose runs but she is not, currently, crying. A bruise blooms at her collar.

“I’m sorry,” Ingrid says. She does not know what else to say. Dorothea’s stare is blank in the mirror. Ingrid knows she cannot decipher Dorothea’s true expression through the boundaries of a limited memory, but she still feels a pang of worry at the sight of Dorothea’s visible upset. Ingrid’s voice is weak when she says, “I am so sorry.”

The crying Dorothea vanishes from behind the reflection of her shoulder. In the main bedroom, Ingrid hears the door rattle. 

“Right,” she says, to the vacant basin mirror. “Thank you for your help.”

Ingrid’s shoulder collides with the heavy, wood door built to keep out robbers. Ingrid’s shoulder collides with her prison, again and again, as if she is some apparition of a memory, doomed to be left behind if she does not somehow change her pattern. She slams into it. She says, “it will come, Dorothea. I promise.” Dorothea jangles the doorknob from the other side. 

The little flame in Ingrid catches. She feels it blossom from her, bright and alight and throwing her like a ram against the wood. The doorframe buckles beneath the impact of her crest. It holds firm.

“Fuck,” Ingrid curses. The handle jangles, again. “Sorry. One more time.”

It triggers again on her next attempt. It is as if she has summoned it, the bright green flicker not thrusting the door open but instead splintering the wood to pieces.

“There we go,” Ingrid heaves out. There are no guards stationed around her. She has been left to stew in her little, miserable cell of a bedroom. Stored out of sight and forgotten. Ingrid stumbles free into the hall. In the distance, she hears singing. 

“I’m coming,” she whispers, careful to keep her voice low. “I’m coming, Dorothea.”

She is about to break into a run when her eyes catch on the suits of armor that flank her quarters’ hall. She walks up to one and rips a sword from its grasp. It is not sharpened. It is firmly decorative. She can tell from a glance. She’s not sure who else can, though, so she lifts it into her grasp and makes for her exit. 

She turns two corners before she runs into the first servant. She waves a wary bladetip at him and he, unarmed, skitters back. He is not here to stop her, and she knows this. His job will be to sound the alarm. He flees, and Ingrid knows her time is short.

Dorothea’s voice strengthens in Ingrid’s mind as she runs. She is a wild horse loose in a palace, stomping through rooms and halls and swinging violently at anyone who might breathe towards her. She passes the ballroom, Dorothea’s voice echoing from within. She makes for an exterior door, an exit, to the gardens. She steps from the house and knows what to expect. Guards jump in surprise at her reveal. Guards meant to keep people out and guards repurposed to keep her in. Ingrid swings at them without hesitation. 

She strikes first, but her blade is not sharp enough to inflict more than a scratch. It still returns to her bloody. Her sword meets its fellow steel. She clangs her weapon against the guards’. She fights, both of them, with wide strokes and no delicate room to parry. She fights wild. Glenn did not train her to fight like this. Her crest triggers, and the blunt tip of the sword surges into the guard’s chest. 

She pulls it free. She flips the blade back to the other one, surprised to see that he is a former member of her own convoy.

He raises his sword. Then, he steps back.

It’s enough hesitation that she risks a bolt. She turns and runs into the snowy garden. It’s easier to trail over its marked paths in the light of the sun, and in boots over houseslippers. Her feet stay warm. Hot, in their warpath. Dorothea runs beside her. Her summer dress looks out of place as it flaps in the cold, autumn wind but she  _ laughs,  _ and Ingrid thinks she does too.

Ingrid knows that the minute she steps off the Wardale Manor’s grounds the guardsmen will turn to a hunting party. She will not be challenged by surprised swords but lances, and horses, and blades prepared to drag her back to her start or kill her in the process. She opens the garden gate with such fervour it snaps off its hinges. 

Behind her, she hears Dorothea offer a final bell of a laugh.

Ingrid glances only once, at the cliff. It looks different in the daytime and distance. It is as if the earth is normal and then it simply ends. It looks like the end of the world. The end of her, if she is not so very careful in her next decisions.

She turns to the opposite direction, and sprints down the road. 

Her sword, still bloodied, drags through the snow in her grip. Her hands are cold, raw and white-knuckled where she clutches the hilt. She keeps running. Her ears strain for the whinny of distant horses. Mateus is miles away, but she needs only to reach its first town. Once she arrives there will be men and women not aligned with her captor. There will be access to transports home.

Dorothea is no longer with her. Ingrid runs. She runs, and runs, and shifts her sword from hand to hand, her weight from lead foot to lead foot. Her blade drags behind her and leaves an unending slice in the snow, tinted with red. It arcs out beside her footprints. She is easily traced. She does not care. She needs only to reach freedom.

The wind is frigid. It prickles at her cheeks, at the icy wetness that forms in her eyes. She cries. It’s not in relief, yet, but it is a swell of freedom she cannot contain. She places one step in front of the other and she sobs. She screams, at the top of her lungs. She does not care that she is easy to hear, easy to track. She is not prey.

She hears horses. Her screams do not stop. She readies herself for a fight. She lifts her blade.

“Ingrid.”

The voice blindsides her. She stumbles, her foot catching on a rock buried in the road’s slush of ice. She falls into a powder of snow so cold it burns. She sobs out a curse. 

“Ingrid,” the voice says, again, and she recognizes its warmth. Ingrid has five siblings, but only one true brother. Sylvain Gautier lifts her from the harsh, unforgiving ground and into his arms.

She cries harder. Her hand has lost its grip on her blade. It does not matter. Sylvain holds her, tight. He is the only man she will allow to hold her and threaten to not let go. He says, his voice more scared than she’s ever heard him, “Ingrid, fuck. Are you bleeding?”

There is blood in the snow. It is not hers. She shakes her head to inform him of this. He breathes out a sigh of relief, and pulls her closer.

“What’s happening,” he says, “what’s happened to you. I couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone and my father said you were  _ engaged.” _

“I wrote to you,” she calls out, “I wrote you and wrote to you and they never reached you.”

“That’s alright,” he says, quick, rushing to assure her. He has thick gloves on his fingers but he still manages to push the chopped strands of her hair away from her face. He is blunt but compassionate in all his mannerisms. “It’s all alright. You’re okay. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

She calms herself long enough to look up from the safe expanse of his embrace. There are knights, behind him. Gautier soldiers, swift and sure and loyal. They stand tall on horseback. In the center of them, Ingrid sees Sylvain’s own empty-saddled horse. He came for her.

“I was held against my will,” she states, as firm as she can. Sylvain does not require more context. His posture stiffens. His jaw clenches in anger. Ingrid says, “I fear I’ve caused a political incident.”

The tension releases as quickly as it rose. Sylvain sighs in bitter relief. “Don’t worry about that,” he tells her. “Can you stand?”

He helps her to her feet. She is as unsteady as a foal. “They’ll chase me,” Ingrid says, braced against his arm. “They are chasing me. They’ll be upon us soon.”

Sylvain looks to the gathered guards, cementing this information, then back to Ingrid. “Let’s get you on my horse. If they overtake us, bolt. You’re about two hours from Mateus.”

“He killed a woman,” Ingrid says. Her chest quakes as he ushers her to his steed. “A woman he was courting, the one before me.”

“You’re… You’re safe, Ingrid,” Sylvain tells her. He lets her go. He hovers, near, and when he is sure she will not fall he offers his hands in a clasped lock. She knows what to do from here. She steps her boot onto his offered fingers, and with a steady boost swings herself onto his warhorse. Her limbs feel numb but she pushes herself through every action. “You’re alive,” he says. “You’ve already done the hard part for me. Let me take it from here.”

It is not so cold, away from the ground. Ingrid feels warmer on the back of a familiar animal, closer to the sun. Ingrid looks down at her one true brother. She can tell he is silently horrified. She knows she looks like a mess, so far from the proper, organized sister he knows. She is scaring him. He is so terrified of her and for her. There are some horrors in this world rooted in violence, and there are worse still those steeped in love.

“You’re okay?” he asks. He sounds reluctant, as if he is hesitant to know the breadth of the answer.

“I had sex with her.”

“What?” he says.

“The woman,” Ingrid says, certain. “Her ghost. I had sex with her, as near as I could.”

Sylvain absorbs this with no protest. He nods his head. “Right,” he replies. “Good for you. We’ll talk about this later, okay?” 

“Yes,” she says.

Sylvain smiles the strongest smile he can, given the circumstances. He attempts to be strong despite his fear. He pats the flank of her horse. “I’m going to take you back to Gautier, alright? I’ll keep you safe.”

Ingrid does not answer his request for approval. She says, instead, “Sylvain, I am so happy to see you.”

Sylvain keeps his grin steadfast and strong. “Me too, Ingrid. Fuck. Let’s get you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to make mention to my first exposure to the Bluebeard myth in the book Swan Sister (2003), here, as well as the 1988 film The Lady in White.
> 
> I wrote this whole thing over the past 24 hours. My power is immense and slightly unhinged. I hope you'll excuse the messy prose. I just wanted to tell a story, this time.


End file.
